


Red and Beautiful

by parsniffs



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 4toop, Airplanes, Chatting & Messaging, Coaches, Cultural Differences, Ice Skating, Language Barrier, M/M, Old Friends, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Texting, could be interpreted to be a shitpost, minami and yuri is friendship tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsniffs/pseuds/parsniffs
Summary: In town for the Rostelecom Cup (which he didn't qualify for), Minami explores Moscow's Red Square. This kid's got a million friends, so of course he's got some connections in the city to make things more interesting.





	1. Pirozhkis and Prologues

**Author's Note:**

> Why is he going to go all the way to Russia when he can't speak Russian? Good question.

With great disappointments always came even greater luck, Minami always liked to say! Even after he had lost at the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship, he still remained in touch with Yuuri. Well,  _ in touch  _ was a strong term that highly suggested that Yuuri and Minami spoke. It was mostly just Minami following Yuuri on every social media account he owned and watching his progress at the Cup of China.

The Cup of China went well (the Cup of China went fantastic!! the best!! it was the best performance Minami had ever seen!) and soon Yuuri and Viktor were off to Russia for the Rostelecom Cup.

Imagining the beautiful scenery in Russia, going over the shimmering ocean in the airplane, the lovely architecture… he was unbelievably happy for Yuuri, but he couldn’t deny he’d like to see all that for himself as well.

Of course, as soon as Yuuri left the country, Minami wanted to go with him. Kanako, as a responsible adult and coach, said no.

“Well,” said Minami as he entered the rink every morning, tossing his equipment bag onto the benches. “If I do good today, can we go to Russia tomorrow?”

“Well,” Kanako would often say, “if you land your quad Lutz you were working on three times in a row, I’ll let you look at the cost of plane tickets.”

_ Once _ . He managed to land it  _ once _ . But that was enough to motivate Minami to keep fighting. One was closer to three than zero! He spent all morning in the rink, then would stop when Kanako insisted it was time for lunch. As soon as his stomach settled from the kare raisu, he was back on the ice again. 

Kanako admired his stamina, but feared that one day he might actually land the quad Lutz three times in a row and she’d be forced to fly to Russia with him like a mother duck forced to follow her wandering duckling.

“Coach! Coach! Ohhh! I did it again!” cried Minami. Kanako looked up from dusting ice shavings off her boots.

“What? I didn’t see.”

Immediately dampened like someone snuffed him out with an extinguisher, Minami crossed his arms and pouted.

“Fine. I’ll do it again. And I’ll make it even prettier!”

“That’s the spirit,” smiled Kanako, who then immediately returned to wiping her boots.

“Coach!” 

“Hmm?” Kanako whipped her head up. “That was wonderful! I saw that! Absolutely! Good job, Minami.”

The boy tilted his head to the side and laughed. “I didn’t do anything! I just had a question!”

“Oh. What?”

“If I land the quadruple Lutz  _ five  _ times in a row, can we move to Russia?”

Kanako squinted at the skater, as though trying to find sense in what he just said. “Why Russia? Yuuri Katsuki lives in Kyushu.”

“Well! I thought about that.”

“Mmhmm.”

“And I decided that, if I weigh all the options and pros and cons…”

“Yes.”

“...that maybe living  _ too  _ close to Yuuri-kun is a bad idea…”

“Oh really?”

Minami began to drift around the rink, slowly skating away in his contemplation. He didn’t seem to notice as he left Kanako standing at the edge, talking endlessly to himself too quietly for her to hear.

“Minami,” she called.

“...and Russia sounds very pretty, too. And I’d qualify for the Rostelecom Cup automatically, since it’d be my hometown cup…”

“That’s not how it works.”

“...and Yuuri would qualify for it every year, too, since he’s so good, so he’d get to come visit me once a year…!”

Kanako sighed and clapped her hands. “Minami!” she yelled, startling the boy and causing him to jump and wobble on his blades. He quickly spun around, shaving the ice.

“Yes, Coach!” He saluted her and held his chest high, though his cheeks were reddening.

“Come here!” 

Obediently, he skated at full-speed towards Kanako and slammed his knees into the rink wall to stop. She winced.

“Are you okay?”

He tilted his head to the side. “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your knees—”

“Oh, whoops!” laughed Minami, smacking himself on the head and letting his hand drag down to cover his eye. “I do that all the time when I’m practicing alone. I forgot to stop properly. I won’t do it in front of you again, Coach, I swear.”

“Stop doing it in practice, too!” yelled Kanako. The boy shrank, and she let her shoulders drop. “Anyway. You were telling me why you wanted to go to a different country and not Kyushu which is only a few hours away…?”

Minami’s eyes lit up and he excitedly pushed off to skate away towards the center of the rink. “Because Yuuri-kun is there every year!”

Kanako closed her eyes and let her head fall into her hands. “Not every year, Minami.”

His head snapped away from looking dreamily into the distance. “Yes, every year! Why wouldn’t he qualify for the Rostelecom Cup every year? He’s so talented!”

“You don’t… Minami, you don’t  _ qualify  _ for the Rostelecom Cup. You’re  _ assigned  _ to it, remember?”

He came back to the rinkside, slowly and cautiously this time. “Oh.”

“Anyway, can we carry on with practice?”

It wasn’t that Kanako was running out of patience (God knows she needed a lot of it to work with a person as energetic and distracted as Minami Kenjirou), but that they were running out of time. The local rink closed at sundown, and the sky was turning an alarming shade of purple and orange that urged Minami to finish his routine practice.

At the end of the rink’s hours, Kanako listened quietly to Minami’s entire list of reasons on why he’d like to go visit Russia and why he was certain he’d like it there and why he definitely wanted to move there as soon as he found a good rink near a good house and whether or not his parents would agree and  _ everything  _ that came tumbling out of his mouth as he skated around the ice in endless circles, preparing to try his five quadruple Lutzes for Kanako’s field trip approval.

“Are you ready?” mumbled Kanako sleepily, resting her head in her hands and propping her elbows up against the rink’s edge.

“Yes!” cried Minami, snapping to a stop in the center of the ice. “I’m ready, Coach! Please cheer for me!”

“Mmhmm. Good luck, Minami.”

Kanako had agreed to Minami’s challenge because she knew it would take him much longer to accomplish it than the Rostelecom Cup would be on. She also knew that it would finally motivate Minami to work on his Lutzes, which were his least favourite kind of jumps.

But she did have to admit the boy had been working tirelessly on them, and she was only a little bit surprised when he landed the first one perfectly.

“Oh, Minami? Can you wait?” said Kanako, briskly walking over to the other side of the rink. “I want to record these.”

“Good idea!” chirped Minami, slamming to a stop with his knees on the side of the rink where Kanako was headed. She glared at him, and he blushed and ducked his head down. “Sorry.”

In the storage closet by the opposite end of the rink’s exit were some camera equipment one of Minami’s many friends had donated after he beat them in a local championship. The kid had too many friends to count, but he swore he could remember all their names. A little strip of masking tape was stuck to the bottom of one of the cameras and written in shaky black marker were the words  _ Thank you Yuri-kun.  _

“Okay, Minami! I’m ready! Are you?” called Kanako from behind the recording setup. Minami smiled brightly and gave a thumbs-up to the camera.

“Yes, Coach!”

He skated off towards the center of the ice again.

Considering the boy’s young age, he had improved a substantial amount since they had met and Kanako began coaching him. The second Lutz had been performed flawlessly. As Minami recovered with backwards crossovers, Kanako privately wondered how much the kid could accomplish if he actually focused.

He—he  _ did  _ focus, sometimes. But not all the time. Sometimes he’d get so worked up when performing a jump he had seen some of his friends fall on that he’d fall too. He’d also get distracted whenever he did something that looked like it had been in one of Yuuri Katsuki’s performances. And when the light filtered through the rink windows and hit the ice just right and made it look like the ice shavings “glittered from rainbow dust.” And when he was having too much fun practicing.

That was a big issue. When practice got so fun Minami was just giggling the entire time, barely focusing on his technique. He was a happy child, but it got troublesome after a while.

The fourth Lutz was perfect, too. Evidently, he really _ could  _ do anything if he wanted it enough. By now he’d already gotten enough right to win Kanako’s seal of approval, but she just wanted to see if he could get five. She  _ wanted  _ him to get five, she really did! But she didn’t want to go to Russia. Oh, the lengths a coach will go to to motivate their athletes…

Minami’s blade hit the ice firmly after his fifth consecutive quadruple Lutz and immediately, he doubled over and began laughing, then pumped his fists up into the air and started screaming incoherently.

“Minami! You did it!” Kanako nearly knocked over all the equipment as she rushed to the rinkside. Minami came skating over at full speed, sliding to an abrupt halt before the wall.

He was slightly out of breath and very cold, but his heart had never beat faster in his whole life.

“Coach! Does this mean we can move to Russia?” he asked, his tiny little dinosaur tooth poking out of his mouth as he smiled widely at Kanako.

“Ahh, well we never agreed on that…”

“Can we move to Kyushu, at least?!”

Kanako laughed and patted Minami on the back, then turned him around and pushed him off towards the rink exit on the other side of the ice. “How about we just go to Russia first…”

Minami gasped and started gaining speed as he raced to the door. “We’re going to Russia! And I get to see Yuuri-kun perform! In Russia! With all the gingerbread architexture!”

“Architecture?”

“Architecture!”

Well, she was proud of him, at least.


	2. Fabulous Friends in Faraway Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minami packs (terribly) and texts Yurio about being his host while in Russia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: yurio uses "garbage" as the non-affectionate term.  
> edit: my dumbass self did the math for a flight from Tokyo to Moscow. Minami lives in Fukuoka. it's not a 9 hour flight, it's 12

The price of plane tickets had, somehow, bent in Minami’s favour and it was well within budget. Which meant, unfortunately for Kanako, there was no way she could convince Minami to stay home when Russia was so affordably available.

Minami had packed quickly and hastily, but after Kanako scanned it over he dejectedly had to rethink his packing plan.

“You just, you know, throw clothes in and then bam! You’re done! Right?” said Minami, prancing around his room, doing exactly that.

“N—Minami, no, that’s not—” Kanako received a bright orange sweatshirt to the face. Minami looked over and gasped.

“Sorry! Sorry, my bad!” He skipped over and plucked it off her head, then tossed it lazily into the suitcase. He danced back over to his closet to continue flinging clothes around the room. Only half of what he launched over his shoulder made it into the suitcase lying open on his bed.

“Minami, are you packing _seriously_?” asked Kanako, putting her hands on her hips.

“I am very serious.”

“Our flight leaves in five hours.”

Minami giggled and twirled around on his heel. “Our flight leaves in five hours! Oh, I can’t even wait! Do you think we’ll see Yuuri-kun?”

“We have tickets to see the Rostelecom Cup, so…” Kanako smiled weakly.

“We have tickets for the Rostelecom Cup!” Minami squeaked. He hugged his shoulders and began squealing like a small mouse. “This is the best! This will be the best trip ever, Coach!”

“Yes, it will be!” chirped Kanako as she idly began picking up all Minami’s stray clothes from the floor and around the bed and started folding them. “I wasn’t there when you bought the tickets, Minami, are your parents coming?”

A squawk of surprise from the other side of the room made Kanako smile to herself, not looking up from the laundry.

“Minami?”

“We-e-e-ll, you _see,_ ” stalled the boy.

“It’s okay if you didn’t buy tickets for them. I know they were cheap but they weren’t four-people-on-a-junior-skater-budget cheap.”

Minami let out a sigh of relief and dropped his shoulders. “I didn’t buy tickets for my parents, only for you and me. I figured they would be busy with work or wouldn’t want to go since it’s so sudden, but…”

He began to wail loudly, causing Kanako’s head to snap up and wince.

“Oh, I’m an _awful_ son, just the worst! How could Yuuri-kun ever look up to someone like me who can’t even invite their own parents to Russia with them!” Minami’s eyes, now having grown a substantial amount, began to fill with tears and his lip quivered as he slid down the side of his closet.

“Shh. Minami, shh. Your parents are fine. I said it’s okay.” Kanako smoothed down his two-toned hair, cooing softly. “And I’m sure Yuuri-kun can look up to you just fine, whether or not you bring your parents with you to distant countries on short notices.”

“R-really?”

“Yep. Actually,” Kanako said, tapping her chin and working out the memories, “from what I’ve seen, doesn’t it kind of seem like he already does look up to you?”

That was all it took. Suddenly, Minami was on his feet, tears magically evaporated from his cheeks, loudly humming and dancing around the bedroom again. He kept repeating, “Ros-te-le-com CUP holla holla.” chipperly under his breath. Kanako smiled and admired the boy at work, once again running throughout the house to pack his bag.

The kid’s good cheer continued for a lot longer than Kanako had expected without further assurance or encouragement. Once he got a spark, he could burn endlessly for hours and forever as bright.

“Do you think the architexture—”

“Architecture.”

“—is as beautiful in real life as in the pictures?” asked Minami as he helped throw all the bags into the taxi that would take them to the airport.

“Oh, even more beautiful!” replied Kanako. She herself was looking forward to the lovely city.

“Mrs. Taxi Lady,” said Minami, tapping on the glass window divider between the front and back seats. He had never been in a taxi before. “Mrs. Taxi Lady, do you know how far Russia is?”

“She can’t hear you,” said Kanako, easing Minami back into his seat.

“Oh. That is a shame.”

Russia, it turned out, was twelve hours away. Minami wasn’t very happy to hear such a long flight time from the taxi driver when she did let them off at their stop, but his lost energy was easily regained by the bustling atmosphere of the airport.

“Kanako, wait! I want to get a picture of the sign and send it to Yuri Plisetsky! I want to tell him that we’re coming to Russia. Do you think he’d be happy to see me again?” Minami said all in one breath, pulling his coach to the side and taking his phone out of his coat pocket. His breath was visible in front of him, and he had to pull off his mitten to open the camera.

“Cheese!” He snapped the photo and texted it to a contact named _Tiger of Russia._

Kanako had to stop herself from snorting. “Why is that his contact?”

“He asked me to make it that. Doesn’t it sound fierce? I like it. I think it works for him. Oh, look over here, Coach! The plants by the front sign frosted over. How cool is that?”

“Very _cool_ ,” agreed Kanako, laughing quietly to herself. It was very _cool_ outside that day. Hehe.

Minami had surprising patience waiting in the TSA line and going through the metal detectors. He kept his bouncing to a minimum until it was their turn at the front of the line.

“Minami, take your phone out of your pocket and put it in a bin,” instructed Kanako.

Minami slid his phone out of his unzipped coat and gasped loudly. Airport clerks looked over for a brief moment before continuing the hustling lines.

“What is it?” asked Kanako, leaning over the skater’s shoulder.

“Yuri-kun replied to me!” Minami excitedly swiped to read the text.

“Minami, we’re in a line.” Kanako forced a smile and mouthed _sorry_ to the people waiting behind them. The airport official standing next to the metal detectors sighed.

“Well, what does it say?” asked Kanako finally, looking back over at Minami’s screen.

**what is this garbage**

Minami was eagerly typing a reply.

**i’m coming to russia to see you skate at the Ross telecommunicator up!!!!!!!!!!!**

**oops i meant the Rostelecom Cup**

“Minami, you can text him after we go through security,” pressed Kanako. Minami pouted and put his phone into the gray bin.

“Thank you, next please!” called the security guard as soon as Minami bounded through the metal detector without any accompanying beeps of alarm.

After they got their shoes back on in the Recombobulation Area (“Haha, ‘recombobulation’...” Minami muttered the whole time), they were off bounding towards their gate with half an hour left to spare.

“Are you hungry?” asked Kanako, setting her bags down on one of the rows of seats in their empty flight gate. “I brought some granola bars.”

“Oooh, what flavour?” Minami peered into Kanako’s open snack bag, eyes glittering. “Mm, chocolate honey! My favourite! Thank you, Coach!”

The boy happily plucked a wrapped bar out of the bag and sank down into his seat. He looked around.

“Aww, no one else is here yet?” he asked, his face falling down into a sad frown.

“No, there are a couple people sitting over there.” Kanako pointed to a group of people huddled in the corner playing card games next to the charging ports.

Minami gasped. “Can I go talk to them?” he asked.

“Um, let’s not talk to strangers right now… did you ever reply to Yuri Plisetsky’s text?”

The divergent seemed to work, as Minami fumbled with his granola bar trying to unzip his coat pocket with one hand. There was a text waiting for him.

**this is garbage. i didn’t ask for this**

Minami giggled and kicked his legs up onto his seat to sit criss-cross applesauce.

**i’m also gonna get to see yuuri katsuki perform!! isn’t that cool? i’m so excited!!!! i’m sitting in the airport terminal right now!!!!!!!!!!!**

**stay in Japan**

**but why????????????? i want to see you again!! it’s been years since we hung out!!!!!!**

**minami don’t lie to me. you’re coming to Russia only to see katsuki.**

**weeeellllllll**

Minami couldn’t deny the whole reason he decided to take a trip to Moscow was to follow Yuuri’s progress through the Grand Prix, but he figured that while he was in Russia he would also get to see his old friend Yuri. Nothing made him happier than the thought of seeing friends again! Minami loved having friends, and he loved all of his friends, and he loved hanging out with them, and he would love to see Yuri Plisetsky again.

**minami. if you are only coming to Russia to see that fat pig, i suggest you stay home. no one likes to see their idols get destroyed.**

Minami quivered in his seat. Kanako gave him a weird look, but said nothing.

**yuri!!!!!!!!!!!!! you’re just as confident as i remember!! i can’t wait to see you again! good luck on your performance at the Rostelecom Cup! i’ll be there to cheer you on! :D**

More people slowly trickled into the airport terminal. A worker slid in behind the front desk and began announcing boarding groups. Minami and Kanako were boarding group B.

**if u come to Russia you have to promise to hang out with me the whole time. i don’t want to see u near the gross pork cutlet bowl,** came Yuri’s reply before Minami could tuck his phone away. Minami innocently showed the text to Kanako.

“What does this mean, Coach?” he asked as they stood up.

“Boarding Group B may now line up,” came the attendant’s voice over the announcing system.

“Oh, ah…” Kanako didn’t want to crush any spirits. “It means Yuri knows the best restaurants in town and doesn’t want you to accidentally get sick from eating any bad food. Is he going to be your host in Russia?”

“Good question!” chirped Minami. “I should ask him.”

“Boarding Group C may now begin to line up behind Group B. Group B may now enter the plane.”

**yuri!! i have a favour i need to ask. will you be my host when i get to Russia?!?!?!??!?!?!**

**only if it keeps u away from the rotten katsudon. sure. see u in 12 hours, minami.**

**i can’t wait to see you again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Minami finally set his phone into airplane mode and powered it off. He and Kanako found spots next to each other, and Kanako let him have the window seat.

Twelve hours later, Minami was just as chipper as ever and skipping off the airplane, Kanako dazedly following after him. Yuri Plisetsky and his grandfather were waiting at the airport terminal for them. Minami smiled widely and busted out the one Russian word he knew.

“Друг !” he cried, and came running to tackle his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao... "proofreading"... what a wild concept...


	3. Awkward Arrival but Admirable Attitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minami gets educated on Russian customs in an unfortunate manner, and Yurio has to leave for practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dialogue all in italics is Russian.  
> sorry for the late update, holidays and all that  
> ☆ALSO IT'S NEW YEARS EVE AT THE TIME OF POSTING AND NEW YEARS/NEW YEARS EVE IS LIT IN RUSSIA☆  
> edit: fuck, I forgot to take my sidenotes out

Yuri’s grandpa spoke a small bit of Japanese and even less English. Minami and Yuri texted in Japanese because it was easier for Minami, whose mind was considerably less capable of learning foreign languages. That’s not to say he didn’t try—he knew quite a bit of English, enough to match a third grader, his teachers at school said. But he got too distracted with the way the Russian _d_ reminded him of a piece of cake, or how the letter that made a _zhe_ sound looked like a spider.

His imagination ran too wild while reading the Russian alphabet to focus on what the words actually meant. But believe him, he did try.

They all had piled into Yuri’s granddad’s car, the old man saying something short and gruff to Yuri sitting in the front seat who then turned to Minami and Kanako sitting in the back.

“He asks that you call him Nikolai or Kolya, whichever is easiest to pronounce.”

“Oh!” Minami’s face lit up. “I like Kolya. It sounds like the English word for koala. Your grandpa does look like a koala.”

“Minami _,_ ” whispered Kanako, her face pulled down into a frown.

He jumped in his seat. “Whoops! Sorry. Don’t tell Kolya I said that, okay?” his wide eyes pleaded to Yuri, who smiled and turned back to his grandfather.

“ _The red-haired boy says you look like a koala, so he’s going to call you Kolya.”_

Nikolai snorted. _“And his coach?”_

_“She will most likely call you Kolya as well, since her son—I mean athlete—is.”_

_“Is she his mother? They look nothing alike.”_

_“They’re not related. Just a slip of the tongue.”_

Yuri and Nikolai’s eyes met for a second, and then they both chuckled quietly. Minami and Kanako sitting behind also exchanged glances.

Moscow was a beautiful city to pass through , but it didn’t seem entirely pleasant to drive through. The roads were very busy, as well as the sidewalks.

“Most Russians walk,” informed Yuri, jerking his thumb towards the thick stream of heads to their right. “But there are also plenty of people that drive. There’s traffic no matter what.”

“Is it like this all the time?” asked Kanako, her forehead creased.

Yuri gave no reply.

 _“You will have half an hour before you have to go to practice,”_ said Nikolai as he pulled into the driveway of the house. _“Please take care of our guests. I must go lie down.”_

Yuri’s constantly hard demeanour softened and he almost frowned, but he hadn’t spent his lifetime learning how to hide his emotions for nothing. He quickly nodded and pushed himself out of the car. “Да _.”_

“This is where I lived,” said Yuri casually as he opened the trunk. Kanako came around to lift out her suitcases. “I live with my new coach now, but you can stay here. This is my grandfather’s house.”

“Minami,” she called to her skater, “come get your things!”

It looked like any other house on the block, but Minami stared at it with wide eyes, completely unmoving. It was only nine in the afternoon, but his eyes were the size of the moon. Slowly, he turned while keeping his eyes on the house as though afraid it would disappear if he looked away.

“K-Kolya, this is your house?!”

“Yes.”

Well, that was about all Minami could handle today.

“I think… we might have broken him…” sighed Kanako. She jiggled his shoulder and fluffed his hair, something that usually made him huff loudly and pout until he parted the red side of his hair back perfectly. But he stood completely still, unaware, gazing up at the house.

“Minami. Do you want to enter the house?” asked Yuri dully.

“Y-eahh… I do…”

“Well then stop standing around like an idiot and get your shit out of the trunk!” he barked.

Minami jumped, bumping Kanako’s hand off his shoulder. He smiled widely at Yuri.

“You sound like an army drill sergeant! You still haven’t changed a bit. Oh, I’m so glad we’re here! I’ve missed you. I’ve never met someone quite so mean before.” The boy was chattering away as he began walking towards the trunk and lifting everything out of it, not paying any attention at all. “BUT! I mean that in a good way. Sorry, Yuri-kun, I mean that in a good way! Like, you’re a coolguy. Coolguy, one word. You’re not cool. You’re a coolguy. It’s a brand of cool. A brand of human. A coolguy.”

“Minami…” Kanako covered her cold face with her gloved hands. Her athlete was work to keep track of.

The inside of Nikolai’s home was well-heated.

“Heat helps my back,” he explained as he unlocked the door and the travelers were greeted with a wall of warm air. Kanako, who had been shivering the entire time, gratefully collapsed through the doorway.

Minami, who had an apparent immunity to the cold from always skating on frozen water, turned around and smiled at Yuri who was standing off to the side of the yard, looking away with his arms crossed and a casual scowl on his face.

“Your grandfather has a very nice house!” he said, bouncing on his toes.

Yuri looked over and returned the smile. A rare occasion. Minami felt honoured. He stepped up to the door and followed Minami in.

 _“The boy likes the house,”_ Yuri told Nikolai as he passed the man holding the door open.

_“I figured. Get the domashnie tapochki out of the closet.”_

Oh, right. The tapochki. He had forgotten about that. It had been a long time since he had guests over.

“Don’t go anywhere yet,” Yuri told Minami and Kanako as he rummaged through the closet by the door.

“Of course not,” said Kanako politely. Quietly, she turned on her heel and hissed at her skater. _“Minami_ , he said not to move.”

There was an audible squeak from Minami, who jumped away from peeking out the window and straightened himself up hastily.

“Was not touching anything, Yuri-kun! Nothing at all! Can assure you on that!”

“Mmhmm,” came a disinterested reply from the closet. Did his grandfather have slippers small enough for Minami? What was his skate size?

“Well, I mean. Maybe I was. But I didn’t break anything!”

Was he still going on? Wow. What a mouth on that kid.

“Minami,” growled Yuri, standing up. He tossed a pair of pink fluffy slippers at Kanako. “What size skate do you wear?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!”

He hadn’t meant to sound so mean, but judging by how Minami’s bangs nearly blended into his face now, he probably had sounded like a mad tiger. Which maybe he was, but did this _figure skater_ seriously not know his own skate size.

“Shoe size, then?” Yuri turned back around and bent down to shove aside a pile of tennis balls.

“I don’t know that either.”

“Minami, you’re wearing shoes right now,” Yuri heard Kanako say distantly. “Just look at the sole of your shoe.”

“Oh! Right! Ha. I knew that.”

Underneath a box of sidewalk chalk he found a pair of tapochki the same colour as the ones Kanako had received, only significantly smaller.

“I changed my mind,” said Yuri as he stood up. “I don’t care anymore.”

He threw the tapochki across the room, the slippers narrowly missing Kanako’s shoulder. Minami, who wasn’t paying attention and had been balancing on one foot to check the number written at the bottom of his shoe, received the pink slippers straight to the face and toppled over, sliding down the wall behind him.

“Minami!” cried Kanako.

Yuri closed the closet door and quickly exited the room. That wasn’t his fault.

(Except it was.)

When Minami got himself together and calmed his giggling fit, they met Yuri in the sitting room where he was sitting and looking quite thoroughly done with his guests already.

“Sit anywhere you want,” were the only instructions given through the hand covering Yuri’s irked face.

The sitting room had a couple chairs facing the fireplace and a sofa with its back towards the window. Minami bounded over to the sofa and plopped himself down. Kanako, trying to be as respectful as possible, took the chair next to the fireplace opposite to the one Yuri was sitting in.

Yuri sighed and lifted his head out of his hands. “Minami. I gave you the tapochki to wear.”

“Hmm?” Minami whipped his head around from looking out the window behind his seat, face stretched into a concerned frown.

“The tapochki. The slippers. The pink things I threw at you. You were supposed to take your shoes off.”

“Oh.”

“And put the tapochki on.”

“Okay.”

Yuri raised his eyebrows.

“So I’ll… go do that now.”

“Yeah.”

Minami exited the sitting room very slowly, with his face looking so red that it might burst into flames any second.

Yuri turned to Kanako. “You can’t tell me you don’t remove your shoes at the door in Japan. I’ve stayed there for competitions before.”

Kanako forced a smile through her constant cringe. “He probably forgot, since… the hallway wasn’t… elevated like back in Japan…”

The following silence was thick and suffocating until Minami came skipping back in with his tapochki on.

“These are soft!” he said cheerfully, returning to his spot on the sofa.

Yuri stared blankly at Minami, wondering how someone could leave the room caught with an egg on their face and come back chipper as ever. This child must have nerves of steel. Was he a trained assassin?

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the time on the grandfather clock’s face. Immediately, he stood up.

“Well. Time to go to practice. Must leave immediately.”

Kanako started at Yuri’s sudden move and Minami let out a little scream, hopping up too.

“You can’t go yet!” he begged, latching himself onto Yuri’s arm.

“Disgusting,” murmured Yuri, looking down at where Minami was leaning against him. “But what a shame I have to. I have to go. Minami. Let go of me. I have to get to practice.”

Kanako looked away and pretended to be extremely intrigued by the fabric of the carpet on the wall.

“Minami. Let go of me.”

“Nooooo! We just got here!” Minami cried, his lip quivering and his eyes huge and watery. “When will you come back?”

Yuri scowled and shook Minami off his arm.

“Minami, this is your host. You should be nicer to him,” said Kanako as they watched Yuri from down the hallway gather his skating gear. “Look at this cool rug on the wall, Minami. Why is there a rug on the wall? Minami? M-Minami?”

She turned away from the mesmerizing wall tapestry and gasped. Minami was hunched over in a little ball on the floor. She bent down to smooth his hair and patted his arm.

“What’s the matter?”

Minami rolled over onto his back, eyes like gigantic pools.

“I lost Yuri-kun this year,” he said with surprising seriousness.

“I’m not dead, asshole!” yelled Yuri from the front room, accompanied by a shout from Nikolai somewhere in the house saying _“Stop cursing.”_

Minami stared up at the ceiling. “Sometimes I can still hear his voice.” He rolled his head to the side. “Yeah, that’s a pretty cool wall carpet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this story is very fun!! and takes some research. if you see something that is culturally inaccurate please let me know.


	4. Metro Friends, Metro Dead Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minami gets lost in the Metro because he was trying to make friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Я дома !" cried Yuri.  
> "YEAH I DAMN WELL BET U R WTF KID WHY R U SLAMMIN THE DOOR AT LIKE SHIT O'CLOCK IN THE GODDAMN MORNING"
> 
> -deleted scene (I can never bring myself to curse in my stories.)  
> edit: I s2g I forgot to title the chapter

It was late into the night, after Nikolai had emerged from the bedroom for a few brief moments to serve his house guests dinner and make Minami laugh so hard he started choking on his pelmeni, when Kanako realized Yuri probably wasn’t going to make it back before Minami fell asleep.

Nikolai had joined them in the sitting room after the meal, mostly only to sit in the reclining chair and nap in a different spot. Kanako figured this was most likely his nightly routine, and that if he hadn’t had guests he probably would have been watching TV or reading a book, but he didn’t want to seem impolite. So instead, he was just going to nap in their presence.

Unfortunately, Minami was there.

His tongue was tingling from tasting unfamiliar foods, his eyes still twinkling from taking in unfamiliar sights on the drive to Nikolai’s house, his head humming with questions about unfamiliar topics.

“What was that drink you served us?” he asked as soon as he jumped onto the couch and turned around to face Nikolai.

“Kompot,” replied the man without opening his eyes.

“What was in it?”

“Berries.”

“Why was it red?”

“Berries.”

“When I was holding it up to the light to see it better I spilled a little on myself. Am I going to be okay?”

“Matches that one part of your hair.”

Minami’s mouth opened, then closed slowly. He crossed his arms and pouted. “Ano… are all the books on the shelf over there in Russian?”

“Yes.”

“Does this window look out to neighbors?”

“On that side are trees.”

“Are there any kids my age in this neighborhood?”

“None that speak Japanese.”

“Oh. Do… you know when Yuri-kun will come home?”

Kanko looked up from trying to guess what kind of wood the coffee table was made out of. She herself was curious of that.

“He doesn’t live here,” replied Nikolai. “He lives with his new figure skating coach. Sometimes he visits, but rarely now that he is in the Grand Prix. Lots of work to do.”

“I see,” said Kanako, nodding her head understandingly. “Do you miss him when he’s away?”

Nikolai opened one eye and stared at Kanako. “I am not lonely, if that is what you mean.” He pushed his chair up and stood, glancing briefly at Minami who was sitting on the edge of the couch in deep contemplation about his hair before leaving the room.

Kanako felt like she had offended him, which she had honestly expected Minami to accomplish first.

“Kolya showed us our rooms before dinner, Minami. Do you remember which one is yours?” she said, rising as well. Minami didn’t look up from where he was staring blankly at the floor but made a sound of agreement. “Okay. I’m going to bed now. You shouldn’t try to wait up for Yuri. He probably won’t come back until the morning.”

“Mm.”

Kanako tried to leave, but an urging thought held her back. She stuttered in her step and turned around. “Oh, and Minami, are you okay?”

The boy sighed, his voice squished in his hands holding his face. “I thought my hair was cool.”

A sigh of relief escaped Kanako. She was worried Minami had come down with a sickness at the very last moment. “It _is_ cool. As cool as kompot.”

She turned back around and made her way towards her appointed room, leaving Minami screaming on the couch.

“I really thought the sunlight would wake him,” Nikolai said to Kanako the next morning after drawing the curtains open and watching as sunlight poured through directly onto Minami’s face. He had fallen asleep on the couch waiting up for Yuri to come back, which, as warned, he never did.

“He sleeps very deeply,” sighed Kanako. “How do you think he gets all his energy?”

“Is there any way to wake him?”

“No.”

Nikolai grunted and left Kanako and Minami in the sitting room, making his way to the kitchen.

 _“Tea. I used to wake Yuri early in the morning with his favourite tea,”_ he kept mumbling to himself. He hadn’t quite woken up yet, but he was used to operating through drowsy eyes taking his grandson to practice.

Kanako entered the kitchen behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Tea,” was the only answer she got.

The tea kettle whistled a couple minutes later, spurring Nikolai to get up from his seat at the dining table where he had been chatting quietly with Kanako. Minami audibly groaned from two rooms over, followed by rustling on the couch and a thud to the ground. Kanako smiled to herself and pushed up from the table to go help her skater.

“What time is it?” asked Minami, looking up to Kanako from the floor with glossy eyes.

“Late, but it’s currently still 2 A.M back home,” replied Kanako as she offered her hand to Minami. He was wrapped in a swarm of blankets, like a little cocoon or nest.

When they returned to the kitchen, two cups of steaming tea were set out. Nikolai was seated at the breakfast table again, reading yesterday’s newspaper. Minami and Kanako joined him, with only a small spill onto the floor from Minami’s inability to contain his beverage responsibly.

“What are we going to do today?” asked Minami excitedly upon placing his mug down.

Nikolai turned the page of his newspaper very disinterestedly. Kanako focused on the steam rising out of her tea.

“What flavour is this?” she asked.

“It’s called breakfast tea.”

Minami stared down into his cup. “When will Yuri-kun come back?”

Kanako slid her eyes to him, dwindling a moment before realizing she didn’t know the answer, and then sliding her eyes back to watch Nikolai solve yesterday’s sudoku.

“You could put a six there,” she offered. Nikolai squinted at the puzzle, then nodded.

“That works. Thank you.”

Minami leaned over the table to look at the paper, but he never liked sudoku very much. He didn’t really like looking at numbers in general unless they were his performance scores.

There was a silence, and Minami slinked back into his chair. He looked out the window behind the stove. “Are there s—”

The front door swung open, followed by a loud crash and shouting in Russian from behind. Another loud clink announced the presence of a skating bag meeting the ground, and the door slammed closed.

“Я дома !”

 _“Yeah, I sure bet you are. Why are you so loud this early in the morning?”_ yelled Nikolai in response, startling Minami and Kanako.

“Is that Yuri-kun?” asked Minami, quivering in his seat.

Nikolai’s eyes at last met Minami’s. “Yes.”

“No,” called Yuri from the front room, but Minami was already up out of his chair and bounding down the hallway.

“Yuri-kun!” he cried.

In his last few seconds upright, Yuri could only wince upon impact of the small chicken nugget. In a blur, red and yellow filled his vision. All he could smell was his favourite tea. _Farewell, cruel world._

“Minami!” yelled Yuri as soon as he realized he was still alive. “What are you doing?!”

“I stayed up all night waiting for you to come home!” wailed the little murderer, rolling off of Yuri who he had pinned to the floor. “I even slept on the couch in the sitting room because it was closer to the front door than the bedrooms.”

“Gross,” said Yuri, standing up and brushing himself off. “Anyway, we’re going to Kashirskaya.”

Minami’s eyes grew to the size of his dreams.

 _“I’m not,”_ interjected his grandfather. _“I need rest today.”_ Yuri’s face fell.

“Fine. You, Kanako, and I are going to Kashirskaya.”

“Wha— WHAT?!” screamed Minami. “YURI-KUN! THAT SOUNDS SO COOL!”

Before he could get brutally tackled again, Yuri slid around Minami and made his way towards the kitchen for tea. “Pack a day bag, if you need. We’ll go after I finish breakfast.”

Minami, true to his nature, scurried off to pack the worst day bag Yuri had ever seen.

“You have seven granola bars,” said Kanako as she dissected the contents of the backpack, “two fruit rollups, one pack of gum, and one puccho stick.” She looked up at Minami, who was standing patiently in front of the door with his hands clasped behind his back. “Is that what you’re wearing? It’s winter, Minami.”

“Oh! Right. Let me go get my scarf from my suitcase!” he said, skipping away towards his room.

Kanako turned to Yuri, who was leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked.

Yuri shrugged.

The Russian Metro was the most beautiful thing Minami had ever seen. The escalators, according to Yuri who was being an excellent tour guide so far, were eighty-four meters underground. As they descended, Minami suddenly became very aware of all the weight overhead.

Hundreds of faces brushed past them, Minami smiling at everyone who looked to be his age and younger. He quivered at the thought that one day he could be friends with all of them.

“Minami,” called Kanako. Minami looked over from reading a sign on one of the columns holding the archways up.

“Oh! Coming!” he called back, pushing his way through the crowd. They reunited, this time Kanako grabbing Minami by the hand to not get separated again.

Yuri had said that the Russian Metro sent trains every one to two minutes in it's peak hours. The bustling energy around them told Minami that it was definitely peak hours.

“Our train just left,” said Yuri, coming to a sudden halt at the edge of the platform. “But another one will come shortly. Until then, Minami, don’t do anything stupid like I know you will.”

“Hey!” cried Minami defensively. “When have I ever done anything stupid?”

Kanako quickly looked away to hide her chuckling.

Yuri, the literal embodiment of the Ice Tiger of Russia, growled and said, “Just don’t.”

Unfortunately, right as he said that, a mother and teenage daughter walked past Minami speaking the familiar tongue of Japanese. Minami’s eyes widened and recognized it instantly. He began to follow behind them.

“Hello!” he said. The Japanese turned around. “My name is Minami Kenjirou! I’m from Japan too. I’m a figure skater. I traveled here with my coach to meet my figure skater friend. Do you know Yuri Plisetsky? We met when we were younger. He’s so cool now! Before he was just kind of squeaky and bitter, but he’s cool now. He’s in the Grand Prix this year.”

The mother, with an uneasy look on her face, began to drag her daughter away.

“Wait!” she said to her mother, and pulled free from her handhold. “You’re Minami Kenjirou from Fukuoka? Oh, yeah! You are! You’ve got the red and blond hair! I watched you in the Grand Prix last year.” She tilted her head to the side. “Why aren’t you in it this year?”

Minami blinked. “Well! You know Yuuri Katsuki?”

“Minami!” cried Kanako. Their train had arrived, but her words were lost underneath the rolling of the car’s wheels. “Minami!”

“The guy Viktor Nikiforov is coaching this season?” asked the girl.

“That’s him!” Minami nodded excitedly. “We were at the same qualifying meet together, and he beat me. But it was so cool! I got to meet him in-person up-close!”

“Minami!” yelled Yuri. “Minami Kenjirou, dumbass skater, Chicken Nugget!” Nothing seemed to be summoning the boy.

“We have to go,” the mother urged her daughter.

“Do you have a phone?” Minami asked her, whipping out his. The girl nodded.

“Let me put my number in,” she said, typing into Minami’s phone. “It’s nice to be able to speak Japanese again with someone other than my own parent for once.”

“Minami!” yelled Kanako. The wave of the crowd moved into the metro car, carrying her with it.

“Minami Kenjirou! The dumbest person I’ve ever met!” called Yuri one last time, trying to force his way through the crowd. But he had lived in Russia all his life, and he knew that it was useless. Under his breath, he muttered hotly, “Fine then. Bye, Minami.”

“До свиданья !” called the girl as she disappeared into the crowd following her mother.

“Bye!” Minami stood on his tiptoes to flutter a wave of goodbye.

Traipsing back to where he had left Yuri and Kanako, all smiles and sunshine and the usual effect from making a new friend, he suddenly found himself at the edge of the platform alone.

“Coach!” he called. “Yuri-kun!”

No reply.

What? Had they left him? He hadn’t been talking to the girl for that long! They didn’t… the train hadn’t come in that time, right?

Oops. Well. That was too bad.

This wasn’t the first time Minami had gotten lost somewhere, and he knew what to do despite his shallow breathing. But this was somehow different than getting lost at the supermarket with his parents or at a different rink on the other side of town with Kanako. He couldn’t ask for help here. The only other person he had seen speaking his language was the girl he had just said goodbye to.

English was common in Russia, right? English was common everywhere. Minami knew a little bit, but it would probably be enough to get help. Right?

“E-excuse me,” he stuttered to the thick air. “I need help. I’m lost. Excuse me? P-please?”

He tugged on the sleeve of a passing lady. “I’m lost,” he pleaded. “I don’t know where my friends went.”

“The trains come every two minutes,” said the woman in broken English yet never breaking her stride. “Get on whichever train you think they got onto.”

Which train had they gotten onto? Which terminal? Under which archway? What station did Yuri say they were going to?

Dazedly making his way to the huge map plastered on the wall, he squinted to try and read the letters.

“Haha, the _che_ sound looks like a number 4 and the _ze_ looks like a 3…” whispered Minami to himself. “What did Yuri-kun call it? Ka—kras… Krasivaya?”

He scanned the map for anything slightly resembling Krasivaya.

“Кра́сная пло́… пло́щадь ?” muttered Minami. It sounded right. “Well, alright then!”

As he began skipping off towards the side of the station that would lead him towards this _Krasnaya Ploshchad,_ his imagination began to run with him.

“Oh, they’ll be so impressed. Usually whenever I get lost Coach always has to go over the PA system at the rink and page me to the front desk and then everyone knows that the short skater with red hair got lost. Coach will be so proud of me! Yuri-kun will be impressed, too. I managed to find my way back to them in a foreign country!”

He skittered to a halt at the edge of the platform. He looked up in his reverie of being praised and noticed that the ceiling, rounded and scalloped on the edges, was a beautiful pale yellow.

“Ooh, how pretty,” muttered Minami as the train pulled up. He let the crowd’s energy move him forward into the car, and off they went down the line towards Red Square.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *makes an oc but just pretends that they're a really ooc version of a canon character* idk Minami doesn't??? he doesn't??? he literally has like 2 canon friends.


	5. Friendship, With and By, Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minami is on his own in Moscow now, so he makes a new friend to do the Russian speaking for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only have one talent in life and it's making 4 chapters of starting exhibition. FINALLY, they're in Red Square.  
> thank you for all the kudos and comments, I love reading comments even if I don't reply to them. the computer is #fixt so I'm back.  
> ☆also at the time of posting it's my one year anniversary of joining ao3☆

“Twelve!” Minami said, slapping the bench as he skipped past it. The man on his phone sitting on it jumped and scowled, but Minami didn’t even notice. He could see another bench coming up and sprinted to go tap that one too.

  
“Thirteen!”

  
He was having a grand old time running through Red Square.

  
“Fourteen!”

  
A grander time than he should, considering he’s lost.

  
“Fifteen!”

  
But as soon as he had stepped off the escalator and his eyes caught the full sight of the city square, any previous thoughts about meeting up with Kanako and Yuri evaporated from his mind faster than he could run towards the towering buildings.

  
“S-sixteen…” Minami had to twirl around a woman whose face was hidden behind a camera to reach the bench.

  
The brisk winter air numbed his grinning cheeks, the wind rustling his hair as he ran all around the square. Though he had seen some benches back home in Japan, there were very few to prevent homeless people from occupying them. He never understood that, though, because if the people were homeless they needed somewhere to sleep, right? Benches were comfortable when they weren’t wet.

  
Once, he had seen a whole row of benches in Wales when he went there for an ice skating competition. For some reason, Kanako wasn’t nearly as excited and wouldn’t let him sleep on them. Here, he could sleep on as many as he wanted to (though he didn’t want to sit on many as they were all covered in fluffy white snow) and he felt so free! The absence of Kanako wasn’t one that he noticed; the absence of restrictions was one he did suddenly realise, however.

  
“Seventeen!”

  
With each bench he passed, his smile became wider and wider, his strides in between skipping longer and longer. He threw his arms back behind him and bent down to feel the wind rush over the top of his head.

  
The energy all around him made his insides buzz. The buildings surrounding him were made in that gingerbread architecture he so loved. The snow on the ground was only a thin layer, the cold not as biting as he had expected it to be. Kanako had warned him he might get hypothermia easily in Russia, but there were so many people brushing past him that he almost felt warm. Moscow was a busy place with busy people going places fast. Yes, faster than Minami, and with a little more urgency and discretion.

  
And with eyes that payed attention to where they were going.

  
“Oхуеть!”

  
Before he could look over his shoulder, Minami was on the ground. And in pain.

  
(A tolerable amount of pain.)

  
“Oh!!” he cried as he rolled around in the thin sprinkling of snow. “You have killed me! I am dead!”

  
The woman he had run into leaned down and squinted into his face, sparing the high sun from Minami’s eyes. She frowned and spoke words, probably, but they sounded like a lost jumble of hissing and spitting when they reached Minami’s ears.

  
“Do you speak English?” he asked. He paused for a moment to think of the Russian word for English. “А… англу?”

  
That was not the right word. The woman’s frown deepened. She shifted the tinfoil wrapping she was carrying to one hand and offered help to Minami. He took her hand but sprang up on his own without really needing it.

  
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the tinfoil with very exaggerated eyebrows to try to get his point across.

  
The woman’s face relaxed, understanding the boy for once. She turned around and pointed off into the distance towards a line of people standing in the snow, their breaths visible in front of their smiling faces as they laughed together. Minami didn’t understand what they were doing, but tinfoil-wrapped parcels came from there and people seemed to be having a good time, so he smiled widely at the woman and skipped off towards the happy people.

  
“Hello!”

  
A few people standing near the end of the line, looking as though they were having considerably less fun, turned around. One of them smiled at Minami, and he smiled back.

  
“What is this line for?” he asked in English.

  
The smile on the stranger’s face slowly faded, as though it didn’t want to go, but they couldn’t help it.

  
“ _Hey, do you know what she said…?”_ they muttered, elbowing someone next to them in the side. The man turned around.

  
_“Who?”_ His eyes searched well above Minami’s head.

  
_“That little girl standing in front of us.”_

  
Minami stood up on his tiptoes to try to meet the man’s gaze. His eyes widened when they finally landed on the beaming boy.

  
_“Oh, you know, that one part of her hair reminds me of traditional borscht. Or maybe kompot. She looks like a very tall six year old.”_ The man’s eyes took in Minami’s whole body, from his shining eyes to his toes on which he balanced. _“Wait, I take that back. She’s really short.”_

  
“What? Did you just call me short?” asked Minami, dropping down onto his heels. “I may not know how to read the Russian alphabet very well but Yuri-kun calls me невысокий all the time. And I’m no Russian master, but невысокая sounds pretty close.”

  
_“Did she just say something in Russian?”_ one of the two strangers asked.

  
_“Yeah, she know’s we’re calling her short.”_

  
There was that word again! Minami puffed his chest out and jumped up as high as he could. He resisted the urge to twirl around like in a performance jump, but he did land on one foot grinning stupidly up at the two Russians.

  
_“She a bird or something?”_

  
The two strangers laughed andturned back around, completely ignoring Minami. He crossed his arms and dejectedly stepped away from the line. He squinted through the fog of his own breath and was able to make out a food vendor’s cart, hot air rising from it like a sprinkling fountain.

  
A growl in Minami’s stomach made him slide back into the line.

  
What were they serving? He didn’t know. How much did it cost? He didn’t know.

  
Which one of them was a ruble again? …He didn’t know. It was the bill, right? Or was it the coin? Kanako had given him some money, but she hadn’t told him how much things usually cost and what each of the coins were worth. She probably didn’t know either, but she was at least with a Russian native.

  
Minutes ticked by as Minami stood shivering, partially from the cold, but also mostly because he didn’t know what the hecky dizzle he was supposed to do when he came to the cart.

  
He turned around, money in his hands to face the person in line behind him. He lifted up the hand containing the coins.  
“Ruble?” he asked.

  
The guy shook his head. He looked only a couple years older than Minami. “Nope, that’s called a kopeck.”

  
Minami was shocked to hear the question returned in English. He broke into a huge grin and began bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  
“Woah, you speak English too? I mean, that’s not really that big of a deal since English is very popular, but I’ve met fewer people that speak English than I thought I would. I live in Japan, do you speak Japanese too?”

  
“No, only English and Czech. But I do speak some Russian too.” The man smiled, the faint shadow of a moustache on his upper lip rising. “I live in the Czech Republic. I’m here for an ice skating tournament.”

  
The air was very cold, and Minami almost choked on it as he gasped loudly. “You’re a figure skater? I’m a figure skater too! Are you here for the Rostelecom Cup? My name is Minami Kenjirou! I went to the Grand Prix once, it was amazing. You probably haven’t heard of me because I’m not that big outside of Japan, but do you know Yuuri Katsuki?”

  
“Yeah, I do. He’s keeping Viktor Nikiforov hostage as his coach,” laughed the man.

  
“Not hostage!” cried Minami. “Yuuri Katskui would never do that. He’s too nice! I met him once. He was so great! We were at the same qualifying meet together and we talked. I talked to Yuuri Katsuki, can you believe it? I found his Instagram account but he won’t add me back.”

  
The line shifted forward, Minami idly walking backwards to keep up with his spot as he spoke avidly, eyes aglow.

  
“Really? We’re at the Rostelecom Cup together. He added me as soon as the list was out. Probably trying to scope out the competition!”

  
“That makes it sound like he’s plotting an evil plan,” hissed Minami.

  
“He might as well be. To be honest, I’m a little nervous about competing against him,” admitted the man, sheepishly scratching the back of his head and forcing out a laugh.

  
“You better be!”

  
The man looked down at Minami, who was smiling mischievously. He noted the little dinosaur tooth poking out, which made him smile, which made Minami think he was laughing at him.

  
“Oh! I’m serious!” Minami stood up straight and twirled through the air. “Yuuri Katsuki is really good. He’s my idol. One day I want to grow up and be just like him!”

  
His combative energy quickly melted away, however, and soon he was simply gushing about how much fun ice skating was and what kind of jumps he was working on, the man smiling every time Minami used the words “pow” or “bwam” and talking about what he had done in practice too and all his friends back in the Czech Republic.

  
Soon enough, the line was steadily sawed down until Minami and his new friend were at the front. They approached the cart together.

  
Minami stood awkwardly to the side as the cart attendee and the man spoke, back and forth in Russian. Minami caught only one word, which was да, but it was enough to make him feel proud of his linguistic abilities. When it was his turn to order, he began mumbling random words. The cart attendee squinted impatiently at him and said something sharp.

  
“I don’t know what he asked me,” stuttered Minami. His cheeks were burning despite the numbing cold of the air; his whole face a bright red against the stark white snowy ground behind him.

  
“Oh, that’s right, you said you don’t really speak Russian,” said the Czech. “They’re selling shawarmas here. Do you just want what I got?”

  
“Sure! Whatever you got smells delicious.” Minami leaned over the tinfoil wrapping held in the man’s hands. “What is a shawarma? It sounds good.”

  
“You’ll love it.”

  
A few quick words in Russian later, and Minami was carrying his own warm ball of tinfoil.

  
Fishing the money out of his pocket, he dropped a couple coins into his friend’s hand, who laughed. “I’m going to need more than that.”

  
They had each paid for their own separate meals, but at least Minami hadn’t needed to speak to anyone in a language he didn’t understand. He lead his friend off to one of the many benches he had counted earlier, where they ate their shawarmas together and laughed and talked more about figure skating.

  
“You can do a quad?” gushed Minami, his eyes wide.

  
“Yeah, it’s no big deal or anything…”

  
“The one time I tried a quad in competition I fell.” Minami remembered that one moment with perfect clarity that made him shudder. Falling had hurt. “It was in front of Yuuri Katsuki, too, but it was okay because it was actually fun! Trying the quad, not falling on it. My friends at the competition there with me also tried quads. We all had fun! That was a fun competition. If I invite you to a local competition, would you come?”

  
“Only if you’d come to my local competitions.”

  
They exchanged numbers and Instagram accounts, the man with a promise to get Yuuri Katsuki to follow Minami back. While he had his phone out, Minami noticed fifty three texts from Kanako and two missed calls from Yuri.

  
“Whoops!” he cried. “I forgot to meet up with Coach and Yuri-kun! I came here to meet them.”

  
“Yuri? As in Yuri Plisetsky?” asked Minami’s companion, eyes nearly as wide as Minami’s.

  
“Yeah. We’re old friends. I’m here in Russia to watch him skate at the Rostelecom Cup.” As he slid to call Yuri back, he turned to his new friend with the biggest smile and the starriest eyes to say, “And now I get to cheer you on, too!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I myself take Russian classes at school, so if you see any grammar issues I'd gratefully fix them. though please note that any time Minami speaks Russian it's intended to be horribly wrong lmao
> 
> AND Y'ALL LET ME JUST SAY I'M SO PROUD OF NATHAN CHEN


	6. IT'S TIME FOR SOME COLLOQUIAL RUSSIAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yurio takes Minami and Kanako around Red Square to teach them some Russian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically an excuse for me to explain all the random Russian words I've been dropping. complete with pronunciations brought to you by Minami

“Yuri-kun! Can you teach me some basic Russian, please?” Minami had asked Yuri the next morning.

“No,” Yuri had replied curtly as he sipped his breakfast tea at the kitchen table.

* * *

 

"Yuri-kun, don't you think I should learn some Russian though?" Minami had asked minutes later.

"No."

Kanako had glared at him over the rim of her cup until Yuri could feel them drill holes into the side of his head and burn his cheeks.

That was how Minami ended up spending his morning sitting in front of a computer answering questions in Russian and trying to remember what letter made what sound in the Cyrillic alphabet.

“I just downloaded it now,” Yuri had told him. “It might be a shit program, but it might also turn you into a Russian master.”

* * *

Pretending to know how to read the Russian alphabet was hard. Harder than Minami had expected.

He really wanted to make Yuri proud of him again. He had sounded very mad over the phone as he gave Minami instructions on how to get home. When Minami met them at Artovadoskaya Station, Yuri hadn’t even asked him where he’d gone, and when they made it back to Nikolai’s house Yuri had stormed off to his room without even listening to Minami talk about his new friend.

Minami could take a hint, and he understood at least that he had inconvenienced Yuri, but he didn’t even know the Russian word for sorry.

* * *

 

Minami and Kanako had finished their tea and syrniki very slowly. Once he gathered their dishes, Yuri insisted that they migrate over to the living room where Nikolai was resting in his reclining chair. Yuri and his grandfather chatted while Minami’s eyes remained glued to the screen, his fingers tapping the keyboard at a painfully slow rate. Kanako sat and stared at the rug on the wall again.

When Nikolai had gotten up after he and Yuri shared a good laugh, Yuri strode over to Minami’s chair. He squinted down at the screen.

“What is this shit?” he said, snatching the computer from Minami’s hands. Minami only pouted in protest. “‘What is the correct form of синий?’ They aren’t even giving you an object! How the fuck are you supposed to know the right form of an adjective if you don’t know what fucking word you’re describing?”

Minami snatched the computer back out of Yuri’s hands and hugged it to his chest. “I had a good guessing strategy! And now you made me forget what I was gonna answer!”

Yuri pointed to the corner of the screen. “You’ve gotten three out of twenty-five questions right so far.”

“It’s better than two out of twenty-five!”

“I knew it,” groaned Yuri. He slammed the computer screen closed and ripped it out of Minami’s hands. “This program is shit. That’s what I get for trying to give you free education.”

He turned on his heel, leaving Minami wailing over his lost progress as he made his way to his room. In his grumbling stomp, he ran into his grandfather in the hallway with a grin on his face.

“ _The cat is a tiger this morning_?” he teased, wrapping his grandson into a hug.

“We’re going out today,” said Yuri thickly through his grandfather’s sweater.

Nikolai scoffed and released him. “To where?”

“Red Square, probably.”

“Be home in time for practice,” Nikolai told him as he slid around and entered his room to toss the laptop onto his bed. Yuri scowled at the mention of practice but said nothing.

(Out loud, at least.)

* * *

 

His day bag was already set from yesterday, and by the time he reentered the living room Minami was calm again and talking to Kanako with wide eyes and huge hand gestures, nearly leaping out of his seat as he described the benches he had seen around the metro station yesterday.

“We are going to Red Square today,” he announced to them. Kanako quirked an eyebrow but Minami turned around with a small gasp.

“We’re going somewhere new today?” he squealed. “Russia’s such a nice city to explore.”

“Russia’s not a city, Minami,” said Kanako.

Minami blushed. “I meant Moscow.”

* * *

 

“The Russian City Metro is such a nice metro system,” Minami said as they stood underneath the ornate ceilings waiting for their train to come.

“It’s not called the Russian City Metro,” Kanako told him as she kept a firm hold of his shoulder.

“Oh! Right. I meant the Moscowian Metro.”

“Don’t call it the Moscowian Metro,” Yuri told him, but the advice was probably blown away before it reached Minami’s ears as the train rolled to a screeching stop in front of them.

* * *

 

“Yuri-kun, is it true the Russian word for Moscow is Моксива?” Minami asked as he bounced on the escalators that took them up to the surface. Yuri shot him a look of pure disgust.

“That’s not a word, Minami.”

Kanako, who was standing on the step behind them, laughed. “Where did you see that, Minami?”

“On one of the signs,” he said as he turned around and stood on his tiptoes to point to the shrinking terminal behind them.

“Don’t learn any Russian words I don’t tell you to,” growled Yuri as he grabbed Minami by the elbow just before he fell down the escalator.

“But then what is the Russian word for Moscow?”

“It’s the same as in English,” Yuri told him. “It’s pronounced ‘shutthefuckup’.”

Any reprimand from Kanako or giggle from Minami was immediately silenced as they reached the top of the escalator, the fluorescent lighting of the station giving way to the bright sun reflecting off the snow on the ground. Yuri held a firm grasp on Minami’s arm to keep him from prancing away.

“Ow!” yelped Minami, but his pout quickly melted into complete awe and murmuring gasp.

* * *

"I've been here before!"

  
“Like hell you have,” snapped Yuri. “You’ve only been in Russia three days, there’s no way you could have seen this place.”

“Yes yes! I have!” Minami nodded as he skipped forward, surrounded by the old brick buildings once more. “I was here yesterday!”

Kanako stepped off the escalator and walked up behind Yuri, her eyes also wide but appearing normal in comparison to Minami’s.

“This is amazing!” she whispered to herself.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. This place is old and boring. We’re only here to read signs and learn basic Russian.”

He followed behind Minami, tracing his footsteps in the light layer of snow dusting the dark concrete. Minami was darting throughout the square again, pointing to benches he had seen and buildings he thought were pretty.

“Coach, look at the _architecture_ on that big castle!” he cried and bounded towards the biggest building in the square.

“What’s his deal with architecture?” grumbled Yuri as he picked up his pace to keep Minami in view.

Kanako laughed. “He likes the gingerbread architecture style. He told me it makes him hungry for graham crackers.”

Yuri could get behind that reasoning, but he would rather not ever tell Minami or Kanako that.

(Besides, the architecture always made him think the buildings would do better with a dollop of whipped cream on top, and then he'd get hungry for ice cream. He’d never thought about graham crackers before.)

* * *

 

Way ahead of his companions, Minami skittered to a stop in front of the building with big lollipops on top of spires. It towered above him like a giant colourful mountain in the sky. All he could do was stand clutching his hands close to his heart and gape.

“That’s a cathedral,” said Yuri, brushing Minami’s shoulder as he passed him to point to a sign on the front of the entrance. “Say блаженного.”

"Blajennovo,” said Minami.

“No. That sucked. Say it again.”

“Blajenova.”

“That also sucked.”

“B-bladgenava.”

Yuri pinched the bridge of his nose to keep himself from yelling at the stupid idiot. “Okay, you know what? We’re not going to learn how to say ‘cathedral’. I’m going to teach you something more important.”

Kanako, who had advanced to further inspect the sign, chuckled quietly to herself. She looked over her shoulder to call to her skater, “Look, Minami, it’s that one letter that you say looks like a spider.”

“Because it does!” he called back, crossing his arms.

“Come on Minami.” Yuri grabbed him by his wrist and yelled to Kanako to follow without looking back. “You’re never going to need the Russian word for _cathedral_ in your life anyway.”

“But what if I ever want to come back here and see the cathedral again? And I won’t be able to ask for directions because I won’t be able to say cathedral in Russian and I have yet to meet any Russians that can speak Japanese. Besides you, Yuri-kun, of course. Some people I’ve met speak English, but it’s not as cool to ask where the big cathedral is in English.”

“It’s the biggest goddamn building in the square, Minami! I don’t think you'll need to ask for directions.”

“But what if I’m not facing the right direction and I don’t think to turn around? I mean, on the off chance that I don’t turn around. I’m not that stupid, I know to look in all directions before asking for help. But what if I recently sustained a concussion from ice skating and forget?”

Minami seemed very troubled by his own stories.

“Do you want to learn a good Russian word?” Yuri asked.

Minami nodded enthusiastically.

“Good. Repeat after me: заткнись.”

“Zakneece.”

Yuri winced at the poor pronunciation. “I mean, yeah, that’s close enough…”

* * *

 

Yuri came to an abrupt halt, Minami stopping right next to him and gazing up at the tall building ahead. Kanako, who was staring down at her phone as she trailed behind, bumped into Minami’s back and looked up with surprise.

“My bad.”

“Заткнись!” said Minami cheerfully.

Kanako’s face broke out into a proud smile. “Oh! That’s impressive. What does it mean?”

Minami turned back to look up at the red building. “I don’t know. Yuri-kun didn’t tell me. But he said I pronounced it good enough, which means I’m improving! Remember that time I kept making the same mistakes on my triple salchow and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong? And then you showed me a video of Yuuri Katsuki doing one in competition and suddenly I could do them just fine! I don’t know what Yuri-kun did, but now I can pronounce the word заткнись, can you believe it?”

“I only said you pronounced it good enough,” snapped Yuri.

“But what does it mean?” asked Kanako.

Minami turned to Yuri with an innocent smile. “What does it mean?”

“It means ‘shut up’ and I think you should learn how to do it.”

Minami was about to say something not nice probably along the very lines of заткнись but was cut off by Yuri pointing to a sign of many colours that grabbed Minami’s attention and successfully distracted him.

“Can you read anything on that sign?” asked Yuri.

“It says дом.”

“Yeah, but say it not so terribly.”

“Dom.”

“A little less terribly.”

“Dome…”

Yuri slapped Minami on the back causing the older boy to whimper, but Yuri had a smile on his face.

“Yep! That sounded actually okay. I mean it sucked, but it was okay.”

That was the greatest compliment Minami had ever received from Yuri, and probably the nicest compliment Yuri had ever given in his whole life.

Quickly, his cheeks pinched red, Yuri added solely to keep up his Ice Tiger image, “That was an extremely basic word though. Also not very important.”

He grabbed Minami’s wrist again and began to lead him off to a different side of the square, but Minami dug his heels into the concrete and yanked him backwards.

“Wait,” he said. “What does it mean? Is it another mean word that I can’t use in front of Coach?”

“Дом? It means house.” Yuri continued to pull Minami on forwards.

Kanako looked up from her phone and gazed around. “Wait!” she yelped upon realizing they had left without her. “Wait up!”

* * *

 

“Coach, what do you think охуеть means?” Minami asked her when she caught up to the pair, tapping his chin contemplatively. “Yuri said it when he almost tripped over his shoelace but he won’t tell me what it means.”

“It means ‘what the fuck’ and I suggest you not use it in front of Kanako,” said Yuri from where he knelt in the snow re-lacing his leopard print shoes.   

Minami was wholeheartedly disappointed. “But it had been so much fun to say!”

“Also, you said it wrong.”

Minami’s face fell as Yuri hopped up, focused on brushing the snow off his knees. Minami jumped forward right in front of Yuri’s face, causing him to stumble backwards and bump into an inattentive Kanako.

“Please teach me how to pronounce it!” he whined, eyes bright and watery.

“The hell? No! It’s a curse word!”

“But I want to learn how to say ever Russian word possible!”

“I just told you not to use it in front of Kanako.”

“I won’t say it ever again after you tell me how to say it,” said Minami, his voice bleeding honesty. He covered his eyes with his hands and blushed. “And I have cursed before, so it’s not like you’re ruining my innocence. Sometimes whenever Coach isn’t around during practice when I mess up on a jump I say one tiny curse word but I don’t ever say it outside of the rink and I also don’t say it very loudly because I know it’s bad, but I heard Yuuri Katsuki say it once and he said it on live television so it must be a little bit okay to say it in private.”

Kanako squinted at Minami. “I’ve heard you say it before, all you say is ‘heck’...?”

A scream escaped Minami, and Yuri had to cover his mouth to keep from the entire Red Square from calling the police for a murder.

“When have you heard me? I’m sorry, I thought I said it quietly! Please forgive me, Coach!” wailed Minami through Yuri’s hand and his own tears.

“Heck isn’t a bad word, Minami!” snapped Yuri. He paused for a moment. “And it’s pronounced a-huite.”

* * *

 

They continued on peacefully, Yuri keeping his distance from Minami to avoid teaching him any more bad words.

“Coach, if I stop cursing in practice promise you’ll never tell Yuuri Katsuki that I used to?” asked Minami quietly as he and Kanako trailed behind.

“Yes yes, I promise. I wasn’t going to either way.”

A warm smile and an added skip to his step thanked Kanako without words. Yuri almost smiled, too, except that he hated Yuuri and any mention of him at all completely ruined his mood.

“That’s called a договор,” Yuri said over his shoulder. “An agreement. It also means a legal contract.”   

“Duhgavor,” echoed Kanako and Minami, and Yuri didn’t have the energy to correct them.

* * *

 

“Where do I live?” Minami asked Yuri as they stood in front of a stand selling maps of Moscow.

“Do you mean where do I live?”

“No, I mean what’s the Russian word for Japan?”

“Oh. It’s Япония.”

“Yaponiya?”

(He said it perfectly, but Yuri didn’t tell him that.)

* * *

 

“What’s the word for snow?” asked Minami, staring up at the sky that had started to snow and trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

“Снег,” replied Yuri from where he sat leaning under an awning, watching his friend make a fool of himself.

“Sneg…” muttered Minami, and giggled as he caught a snowflake on his nose.

* * *

 

“Should we get some lunch?” asked Minami as his nose drifted towards a food vendor they had just passed.

“Обедать? Sure.”

Kanako checked the time on her watch. “It is pretty late in the afternoon. What are they selling?”

Minami took one look at the hot air rising from the cart and the tinfoil wraps in the hands of those around them and turned to her with a big grin on his face. “Shawarmas!”

* * *

 

“You know, Yuri-kun, where are we?” asked Minami as they stood in front of a big board showing the map of Red Square, his hands kept warm from the falling snow by the tinfoil wrap in his hands.

“Red Square, dumbass,” said Yuri, pointing to the big words stating exactly that at the top of the board.

“I meant in Russian!”

“Красная Площадь.”

“Krasnaya Ploshchad.”

(Minami was getting better at pronouncing the words Yuri told him, but he’d never tell him that.)

* * *

 

“Yuri-kun, would you consider me a drug?” asked Minami as they all three sat on a bench, watching the snow fall and finishing their shawarmas.

“No…?” Yuri frowned. “You mean a друг?”

“Yeah, a drug.”

“A droog.”

“Drug.”

“No, I don’t think you’re a drug.”

Minami actually cried, but Yuri let him weep for a good three minutes before he said, “But I do guess you’re a droog.”

* * *

 

Yuri tried to keep Minami distracted from where they were heading with random tidbits about Russia he wasn't entirely sure were true. It worked, though, and Minami barely noticed when they stopped in front of a building with reflective windows.

“Okay, Minami, time for some important lessons.” Yuri wrapped his arm around Minami’s shoulder, something he would never ever consider doing in public except that no reporters ever hung out in Red Square, and that he needed to make sure Minami didn’t deck him after what he was about to say.

“I’m ready to become a Russian master!” chirped Minami as he bounced on the balls of his feet and tried to peer into the window. “What are we looking at?”

Yuri pointed to Minami’s reflection in the glass. “Ты невысокий.”

Minami screamed indignantly and bounced out of Yuri’s grasp. “Hey!! That was mean! I’m not that much shorter than you!”

Doubling over in laughter, Yuri received a sharp glare from Kanako through the reflective window. Tears were actually beginning to form in the corners of his eyes and he watched Minami scream and cross his arms, trying to jump as high as he could to be taller than Kanako.

Yuri needed to lean against the side of the window to support himself as he gasped for air and hissed laughter. He glanced up into the window of the department store, catching the eye of someone inside. Their eyes widened to the daily size of Minami’s, nearly dropping their phone as they rushed to the front window.

 _“Oh, my god!”_ They jiggled their friend next to them. _“That’s Yuri Plisetsky!”_

“Oхуеть,” muttered Yuri. He turned his back to the window and flipped his hood up, grabbing Kanako’s wrist with one hand and Minami’s with the other. “My cover has been blown.”

“Are we in a spy movie?” asked Minami, eagerly running along next to him.

“No, he’s just famous,” said Kanako, who was having a considerably less great time than her skater.

Yuri ran them all the way out of the Red Square, down the metro escalators, and onto the train that had just pulled up.

“But wait!” wailed Minami, watching sadly as the doors closed and the beautiful metro stop was swallowed up.

“I’m not in the mood to sign autographs,” said Yuri sourly. “I just came out to have a good time and honestly I feel so attacked right now.”

He grabbed Minami by the scarf that hung loosely around his neck and yanked him backwards away from the door. Minami remained quiet for the rest of the train ride until they arrived at their stop, during which he only made one comment about the ceilings.

* * *

 

“How do you say beautiful in Russian?”

“Красивий.”

“Krasiveuil.”

* * *

 

“Okay,” said Yuri as they stood outside his grandfather’s home in the light snow. “This might be your most important lesson ever. Are you ready?”

Minami nodded enthusiastically, bouncing in place. “Ready!”

“Alright. The door is unlocked, so kick it open and yell ‘Я дома.’ Practice saying it.”

“Ya doma.”

“That’s perfect.” (This, Yuri would admit.)

Minami beamed at him.

“What does it mean?” asked Kanako from where she stood to the side, almost as though she were afraid of what was about to happen.

“It means ‘I’m home.’ And you have to yell it. Every time. Otherwise it means something different if you say it quietly.”

“Does it really?” asked Minami, mouth hanging open in awe.

“No, it doesn’t. I just made that up.”

“Oh.”

Yuri flipped his hood up again. “Are you ready?”

“Ready!”

“Set?”

“Set!”

“Go!” he and Kanako cried at the same time.

Minami kicked the door open and screamed as loud as he could, in very capable Russian, “Oхуеть!”

Yuri almost died of laughter, Minami almost died because of Kanako, and Kanako almost died of embarrassment as Nikolai came down the hallway with a very confused glare.

* * *

 

“Does this make me the Russian master yet?” Minami turned to Yuri innocently, eyes squinted shut by his big grin.

“It makes you the best Russian student I’ve ever had, that’s what.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reread this only once because I'm lazy like that, so I apologize for any typos.
> 
> also wtf is this writing style? it was fun to write like this but idk how I feel about it. opinions appreciated.


	7. Fistfights for the First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yurio is a bad influence on Minami and causes him to run into some bad people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost immediately after posting the sixth chapter I got in trouble with the staff and nearly had my account suspended, so I tried to stay away from the archive for a little while. sorry for the wait. to make up for it, have a longer chapter!  
> ☆also happy Pi Day y'all I know 95 digits☆

“I think this is the first time I’ve actually slept in my room,” said Minami as he stretched his arms out in the hallway. 

They had gotten back home at a reasonable hour, so Minami had also gone to bed at a reasonable hour. For the first time since he got to Russia! He was so proud of himself.

“Yeah, I think it is,” said Kanako from her doorway through a yawn. “Congrats on finally entering your room. You gravitate towards the couch too often.”

“But it’s such a soft couch!”

“Wasn’t your bed softer?”

“Oh… I don’t know. I haven’t touched the couch in a while,” said Minami despite the fact he had sat on it right before he went to bed. He tapped his chin and kicked his heels together, deciding, “I should go compare them!”

He took off running down the hall, Kanako watching from the door frame of her room as he ran into Yuri leaving his.

“What the fuc—?”

_ “Stop cursing.” _

Kanako laughed and followed Minami to the living room, Yuri trailing behind muttering Russian words that were probably not nice.

_ “You will have to go to practice in half an hour,”  _ Nikolai told Yuri as soon as he entered the kitchen.

_ “What? It’s not even eight yet.”  _ Yuri grumpily swung open the cabinet and took out two mugs.

_ “The Rostelecom Cup is in less than two weeks,”  _ said his grandfather with a smug smile at the way it made Yuri jump.

_ “I forgot. Time flies when you have idiots over at your house.” _

From the living room, Minami gasped so loudly he almost choked.

“I think you forget I’m the Russian master!” he cried, bouncing off the couch and running to stand in front of the kitchen’s archway. “I heard that!”

“Oh really?” Yuri slammed the mugs in his hands onto the counter. “Fight me.”

Minami blinked in surprise. “I — Is there an option B?”

“The options are to either come pour your own tea and shut up or not get any tea and shut up.”

Yuri filled the two cups on the counter and picked them up, placing one in front of Nikolai. Minami stared at the steaming mug in Yuri’s hand.

“What?” snapped Yuri. In an act of pure spite, he tilted his head back and drank the whole cup in one breath.

_ “Did you burn your tongue at least?”  _ chuckled Nikolai without taking his shining eyes off the morning paper.

“Wow, Yuri-kun!” exclaimed Minami. He bounded over to the kitchen island on which the teapot stood. “Where are the mugs? I want to try that too!”

“Nah, you don’t,” mumbled Yuri, tears welling up in his eyes. “You really don’t.”

Minami found the mugs all on his own after searching through every single cabinet in the kitchen. Happily, he took two out and filled them up with the tea, which had now cooled and stopped steaming in his face.

“Coach! Come get some tea!” he said, skipping to the breakfast table. He sat down across from Yuri and showed him the contents of the mug.

“This looks cooler than what you drank. Colder, I mean. But the way you drank it was cooler. Hold on, I’m going to do that too. Okay?”

“If you want to, I won’t stop you,” muttered Yuri into his empty mug as he turned away to have deniability.

Kanako entered the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and squinting them shut in a wide yawn.

“Minami, what are you…?”

Minami turned his head to look at Kanako over the rim of the mug, spilling tea out the side and onto his cheek. He giggled into his cup, spilling more until he slammed it down on the table, causing the dark surface of Nikolai’s drink to ripple. Wiping his mouth, he scowled and said, “Your tea is on the counter.”

“Thanks…?” Kanako picked up her tea and stared into it. Should she drink it? Was it safe? 

“Did I do it right, Yuri-kun?” she heard Minami ask distantly.

“Do what right?”

“Did I slam my cup and scowl right? I wanted to get the full effect!”

Nikolai laughed. “It was like I was seeing double.”

Yuri resisted the urge to scowl as he pushed up from the table and snatched his cup. He brushed past Kanako and set it in the sink. Kanako pretended to drink her tea as she wandered away from the counter to give Yuri space.

“Oh, look at the time,” he said grandiosely pointing to the clock on the microwave. “Bye.”

He left the kitchen, ignoring Minami’s whimpers. 

“Yuri-kun! Do good at practice!” he called down the hallway.

He received only a grunt in return, along with the sound of rustling fabric and the clinking of metal.

The door slammed closed, and Minami sat staring into his empty cup dejectedly.

“Do you want more tea, Minami?” Kanako asked.

“No thank you, Coach,” he said. Slowly, he stood up and put his cup in the sink. “Kolya, what are we doing today?”

“Eh? Oh… yes… today… you will need to be entertained…” Nikolai scratched his chin. He thought for a moment, his eyes growing blank and staring right through the walls. Finally, he muttered, “Well, I do not know. You can do whatever you want.”

Minami’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, privilege,” he whispered, skipping off to the living room.

Kanako put the mug full of untouched tea down and thanked Nikolai for making them breakfast.

“So, what do you want to do today?” Kanako asked, sitting down on one of the chairs across from the couch.

“We could go to the park!”

Kanako sighed sadly. “It’s winter, though.”

“Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting.”

Kanako propped her chin up in her hands. “But there’s snow on the ground,” she pointed out. Minami raised his eyebrows and turned around to look out the window behind him.

“...I keep forgetting to look at the ground.”

Kanako tapped the side of her head. “Well, you never got to Kashirskaya with us. We could go today.”

“What was in Kasheerskeya?” 

“A big shopping center.”

Minami bounced on the sofa. “You never told me about that trip! Did you buy anything?”

Kanako laughed awkwardly and looked away. “I was too distracted to look in any of the stores. We were worried about you. We mostly just walked around and Yuri pointed stuff out.”

Minami’s grin fell. “Nooo!” he wailed. “I’m sorry, Coach! I’m sorry for making you worry while you were at Kasherkay! I’m sorry for getting lost!”

“Kashirskaya. And it’s okay.”

Minami began to cry, startling Kanako. She stood up and quickly sat down next to him on the couch.

“Nope, nope, nope,” she muttered. “Minami, I said it was okay. A lot of the lines were too long anyway.”

Minami sniffled and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“But Coach—!”

He was cut off by a buzzing from his pocket. Minami’s phone screen was bright in the dim room. Usually they let the big window behind the couch wash the room in light, but thick grey clouds had stationed themselves in front of the sun that morning.

“What is it?” Kanako asked, peering over her skater’s shoulder.

“Oh!” he squealed. “Someone on Instagram followed me! It might be Yuuri Katsuki. Emil from the Square promised me he would.”

“Emil…?” Kanako scratched her head.

“We ate shawarmas together.”

Kanako thought back to when Yuri, Minami, and she had sat on a bench in the snow and ate their shawarmas. “Did we…?”

Minami didn’t answer, immediately getting absorbed in his phone. He tilted his head to the side and brought the screen closer to his face, as though that would help him recognize the username better.

“Who’s that?” Kanako asked.

She received only a shrug.

“I don’t know, I thought I knew them but…” Minami’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Oh!! Wait! I know who this is!”

He tapped on the profile and scrolled down the account. “Yes! I know this person! We met in the metro! I have her number but I never texted her. I guess I forgot. But she found my account!”

He scrolled back up to the top of the page and tapped on the most recent post. It was of the woman with her mother and three tiny identical children in front of a candy-like cathedral.

A cathedral… 

“Wow!” Minami exclaimed. “This was in front of that big blajennovo in the Krasivaya Ploshchad!”

“Oh! You’re right!” Kanako smiled. “When was it posted? I wonder if we were in the Square at the same time.”

“Twenty three… Twenty three minutes ago!” 

Minami jumped up from the couch, startling his coach. “They’re in the Square! Let’s go to the Square! Let’s meet them there.”

Kanako hopped up next to him. “Do you really want to go back? That would make three days in a row.”

“Red Square was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen! All the gingerbread architext…  _ tecture _ … was so pretty!”

Minami held the phone over his heart and twirled around. “We could go back! When I met her in the metro she was only with her mom. We could meet her kids! Her tiny children! Aren’t they so small, Coach?”

“Not as small as ( Josh Dun) you,” chuckled Kanako.

Minami shot her a murderous glance that strikingly resembled Yuri at most hours of the day. Kanako had to blink to clear her vision and make sure Yuri hadn’t magically teleported in front of her.

**stay in the square**

“Are you texting her?” Kanako asked, wrapping her arm around her skater’s shoulder.

**Minami Kenjirou? Why?**

“Yeah,” said Minami, his tongue sticking out of his mouth as he concentrated on coming up with a good explanation why without ruining the surprise. “Oh, I got it!”

**fight me**

“Yuri is rubbing off on you too much,” Kanako noted.

**I wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon I guess…**

“Yay! Let’s go, Coach! We have to meet her little kids in the square!”

Minami skipped off towards the front door. Kanako poked her head into the kitchen. Nikolai was sitting at the breakfast table with the newspaper propped up in front of him, a pencil in hand probably playing yesterday’s sudoku.

“We’re going out,” she said.

“To where?”

“Red Square, it seems.”

Nikolai tapped the eraser of his pencil on the table.

“Come home whenever. If the Metro stops running call me.” He turned the page of his newspaper and sniffed idly.

“I don’t think we’ll be out that long, but thank you.”

She disappeared behind the archway and turned around, running smack into Minami.

“Sorry Coach!” chirped Minami as he slid gloves onto his hands. “I brought your scarf for you.”

“Thanks.” She took it and wrapped it around her neck. “Is your daybag still prepared?”

Minami slid away for a brief moment and returned with his bag in his hand, slinging it over his back.

“Okay, I guess we can go then.”

She marched forward and opened the door, stepping out into the powdery layer of snow on the front step. Minami followed behind, bouncing on his toes.

“Minami, go put a coat on.”

“Right! Yes, Coach!” 

“Minami, back away from the metro door so it can close.”

“Right, Coach.”

“Minami… Do you know who we’re looking for?”

“Yes, Coach!”

The sky had begun to sprinkle snowflakes upon the square, dusting the dark cement and towering buildings in a thin layer of white. Kanako, whose only form of protection was her coat and the scarf she accepted from Minami, wandered around following her athlete absentmindedly.

“Is that her?” she asked, taking her hand that was turning red with numbness out of her coat pocket to point to a woman with brown hair across the square.

Minami spun around and squinted into the distance. “No.”

Kanako rubbed her hands together and blew into them. “Are you sure she stayed in the Square?”

“She said she would!” 

Minami skipped off towards another building, peering through the windows if there were any and throwing open the doors if there were not.

“Do you know her name? You could call out for her,” Kanako suggested.

“No, she never told me hers. But I did tell her mine.” Revising the advice, Minami jumped up onto a bench and cupped his hands over his mouth. “My name is Minami Kenjirou!”

“How is that going to help?” Kanako asked with genuine curiosity, sitting down on the bench next to Minami’s feet.

“Since I told her my name, she might recognize it and come meet me!”

Kanako folded her hands in her lap and sat patiently swinging her feet, listening to Minami’s constant shouts. “Have you texted her? She might not know you’re here.”

The skater dropped down from the bench and produced his phone out of his pocket, using his teeth to pull off his glove.

**I’m in the square!!!!!!! where are you??**

**Minami-san! I see you. My daughters are with me today**

**oh!!!!!!!!!! i wanna meet them!!**

Minami hopped back up onto the bench and shielded his face from the snow with his hand.

“Oh! Is that you?” he called out. He puffed out a breath of warm air, trying to blow the snowflakes out of his face.

Kanako turned around in her seat and gazed into the distance. “Who are you talking to? Did you see her?”

Between the snowflakes and light fog emerged a smiling face followed by three tinier smiling faces.  Kanako stood up and brushed the fluff off her coat that had begun to accumulate on her lap as she sat on the bench. Rubbing her knuckles together for warmth, she offered a hand to the only one of the four who met her at eye level.

Minami jumped over the back of the bench and landed (on one foot out of habit) in the freshly fallen snow. He kneeled down to face the tiny triplets.

“Coach!” he said from where he remained on the ground. “They are much shorter than me!”

The woman released Kanako’s handshake and returned her mitten to her pocket, glancing over at Minami and her daughters. She laughed, saying, “Were you surprised?”

“Well…  _ no… _ ” Minami stood up, hugging his shoulders. “I knew I was gonna be taller than them. But I didn’t know how old they were. They could have been six and almost my height. Yuri-kun tells me I’m just as short as a toddler.”

“Wait,” said the woman. “‘Yuri-kun’? As in, Yuuri Katsuki?”

Minami grinned. “I met Yuuri Katsuki once! At a qualifying meet. But no! Yuuri Katsuki would never insult me the way Yuri-kun does. But it’s just because Yuri-kun and I are such good friends. Only friends tease other friends. Otherwise that’s just called bullying, and even though Yuri-kun acts tough he’s not a bully.”

“Acting tough? Teasing? So… Yuri Plisetsky?” 

Minami’s finger shot up to his nose. “Yep! You got it! We met when we were younger, and he was still mean. But not really mean. He was squeaky but not mean. And now he’s not mean either, but he tries to be. And it’s funny to watch him snap at people. Whenever I watch him yell at other people it reminds me of when we were younger and his coach yelled at him all the time.” Minami twirled around to face Kanako. “Coach, for me to grow up to be like Yuri-kun, will you please yell at me?”

Kanako laughed and lassoed her arm around her skater, leading him back to the bench to sit down. The spots where they had been sitting were already replenished with new snow.

“You’re older than Yuri,” she reminded him.

“Oh, yes! That’s right.” Minami sat down next to Kanako and waved the triplets and their mother over. “Do you think Viktor yells at Yuuri Katsuki? Do you think that’s how he becomes so amazing?”

The woman lead her kids over, laughing into her coat collar. “I think there’s more than yelling behind Viktor and Yuuri’s relationship…” she whispered to herself.

The little girls crowded around her feet giggled and huddled together. They hoisted each other up onto the bench next to Minami, the first two pulling the last one up. All together, they sat in a triangle and only occupied the space of one normal person on the bench.

Minami stared down at them and gasped. “They’re so tiny and cute!”

“Who are you calling tiny?” said one of the girls.

“We aren’t much smaller than you!” said another.

“Didn’t Mama tell us you were like four foot-somethin’?” said the third.

“I only said he was shorter than me and I’m pretty short,” corrected their mom, hastily closing her arms around their faces to keep them from talking. “And hey, are you saying that I’m four feet tall?”

“No!” chimed the children through their mother’s coat sleeves, accompanied by several little chuckles and squeals.

Minami, who had tears in his eyes from being ganged up on by six-year-olds, turned away from crying into Kanako’s shoulder and glared at the little kids.

“I just came out here to have a good time and honestly I’m feeling so attacked right now,” he said. Sizing the children up and deciding that even if they stood on top of each other they would only amount to his elbow, he added with the greatest huff of air and frown on his face, “So fight me!”

Kanako laughed politely into her glove. 

“He’s been like this since we got to Russia. He’s been hanging around Yuri Plisetsky too much and that boy’s a bad influence,” she told the woman as the children and the skater got up to assume fighting position in the open square. “I specifically remember coming home from the junior competition where the two met, and Minami wouldn’t stop scowling at everything. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was just trying to be like the cool boy that gave him a camera.”

“I’ve met him before,” said the woman. “He tries to be tough but at most can achieve slightly intimidating, and only in dim lighting.”

The two laughed, and Kanako stuck out her hand for the other girl to shake. “My name is Odagaki Kanako.”

“Nishigori Yuuko.”

They shook and smiled, and Yuuko pointed to the four fighters. “That’s Axel, that’s Loop, and the one that Minami-san just high-fived is Lutz.”

The two sat passively watching the kids fight from the safety of the bench, discussing skating techniques, Yuri Plisetsky, and Yuuri Katsuki.

“How can Minami-san be friends with Yurio?” asked Yuuko, staring up at the snowing clouds. “Minami-san adores Yuuri and Yurio can’t stand him. It’s just odd.”

“Why are you calling him ‘Yurio’?” Kanako asked. “That’s a weird nickname. Are you friends?”

“We’ve only met once, but we gave him the name Yurio to keep him separate from Yuuri.”

Kanako considered it and tilted her head back and forth. “It would be helpful, I guess… How did Yuri respond to it? I might start using it.”

Yuuko broke out into a huge grin and started describing all the times Yuri slammed the doors at the bathhouse and stomped around the rink and threatened to block her number with such great enthusiasm and cheeriness that Kanako couldn’t really tell if she was receiving actual information or was being told a dream Yuuko was fond of.

“So.. he…  _ didn’t  _ like the nickname,” she managed to piece together at the end of all the stories.

“Not one bit,” laughed Yuuko. “But we still call him Yurio anyway, just for clarity. Whether he likes it or not, Yuuri Katsuki was named Yuri before he was.”

“Well…” That was true. “Hmm.”

Kanako couldn’t think of an argument, couldn’t even think of why she needed to argue. Yuri was Minami’s friend but a general menace to society. If having an irritating nickname was how he was due to indemnify for his inconveniencing attitude, Kanako could see no injustice there.

The two returned their gaze to Minami and the triplets. Instead of fighting, Minami was squatted down in the snow tickling the little children until there were tears in their eyes that got frozen to their cheeks, telling them dramatic stories with huge hand gestures that involved interpretive dance movements. The girls loved it and would climb onto his legs as he pranced around the square.

“Oh, I guess they made peace,” giggled Kanako.  A _ договор. _

“That’s surprisingly rare for my kids,” said Yuuko. “I wonder what happened.”

They looked on with curiosity, enjoying the sight.

Meanwhile, Minami was running for his life.

“Get off!” he cried as the tiny children latched onto him like velcro.

He tried to run but they would follow. He tried to distract them but their focus was laser-sharp. Their sole mission in life was to take him down and they would not stop until their goal was reached. 

“Begone, vast defilement!” he yelled as he tossed the girls into the snow and dove to attack them the most lethal way he knew how: tickling.

“Axel! Now!” called Loop from where she was rolling away from Minami’s grasp, pushing a path through the snow. Minami turned around with a terrified look paralysing his face and shrieked as Axel launched herself out of Lutz’s hoist to tackle him to the ground. The soft snow broke his fall.

Just like that, all of them were upon him at once.

“Noooo!” 

His hand, raised toward the sky as though trying to grasp onto the falling snow and pull himself out of death, slowly fell down in defeat. They had beaten him.

These six year olds…

_ They have won. _

Kanako giggled into her scarf and stood up from the bench. Slowly meandering her way over to her fallen skater, she looked down at him buried underneath the Nishigori triplets and asked with an idle whistle, “Do you, by chance, need any help?”

A faint wail escaped and Kanako offered her hand. Minami grabbed it and jumped out from underneath the children. He ran behind his coach and peeked out around her arm.

“Where did he go?” Lutz said, pulling her face out of the snow.

“We weren’t finished with him!” said Axel, staring up at Kanako.

“We still have to tickle him!” agreed Loop.

“Well, it is very unfortunate that your prey has escaped, but we have to go home now,” said Kanako as she began to back away, keeping Minami hidden. “Bye.”

They backtracked all the way to the bench. Minami waved Yuuko goodbye. Kanako turned around, taking Minami by the hand and running with him all the way out Red Square and to the top of the Metro escalators.

“What happened?” Kanako asked as they descended to the platform.

Minami could only stare wide-eyed in shock. On the train, they found seats and he let his head rest on Kanako’s shoulder.

“I just wish I could win  _ one  _ fight, Coach,” he sighed. “I bet Yuri-kun wins all of his.”

“Yuri is very weak,” Kanako assured him. “You could probably beat him if you actually tried.”

“Do you think so?” asked Minami, turning wavering watery eyes up towards her.

Kanako nodded because she actually believed it, and not just because she wanted Minami to stop staining her coat with tears.

Minami bounced all the way off the platform and back to Nikolai’s house. He bounced down the hallway and through the living room to see Nikolai in the kitchen, preparing dinner.

“Zdrastvootie!” chirped Minami as he passed. Nikolai gave him a weird look but said nothing. Doubling back to the doorway, Minami remembered to ask, “Is Yuri-kun home yet?”

“In the linen closet,” replied Nikolai without looking up from the stovetop. “He’s getting me hand towels.”

Skipping off to find the linen closet (Minami had never seen one before in his life) he hummed happily, waving to Kanako as he passed her sitting in the living room.

“Are you staring at the rug on the wall again?” he asked.

“No…”

Minami laughed, continuing down the hallway and running straight into Yuri.

“Yuri-kun!” he cried.

“Watch where you’re going,” muttered Yuri under his breath. He tried to push past the boy, but Minami moved to the side to block him. “What do you want?”

Minami made a grand show of putting his hands on his hips and standing back bravely. With a smile that took up his whole face, he answered, “I accept your challenge!”

Yuri stared blankly. “What challenge? Practice kicked my ass. I can’t remember a damn thing.”

“From this morning,” said Minami. 

Yuri rolled his eyes just as he realized what Minami was about to say.

“Yuri-kun! I’m willing to fight you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the time between chapters should be cut down soon ;^)  
> sorry for the month y'all had to wait. hope I didn't worry anyone with the summary lmao
> 
> how many digits of pi do you know? my friend knows 107


	8. ~oops I did it again~

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YA BOI (ME) BROKE THE COMPUTER AGAIN

did I mention the computer is broken? and I hate writing on my phone. haha.  
"the time between chapters will be cut down soon," once said a LIAR.  
this story will be ending soon, only a few more chapters to go, and yet the finish line is still so far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhhh. please enjoy my parting gift for this month's chapter with my apology in the form of the headcanon that Minami can't read Roman numerals. 
> 
> thx thx

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot comprehend Japanese honorifics for my LIFE so if I got some wrong, please do tell me.


End file.
